


Common Ground

by FeathersMcStrange



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Caring, Cities, Gen, references to other characters - Freeform, the friendship that could have been
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 22:59:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6927445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeathersMcStrange/pseuds/FeathersMcStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Addison finds herself called back to Seattle when disaster hits two people who used to be her family - if only she could convince her heart that they weren't her family any more. A car ride from the airport offers time to think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Common Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a series of drabbles based off a prompt list on tumblr found here: http://aromanticgcallen.tumblr.com/post/144666238426/obscure-feelings-drabble-prompt-meme characters assigned by my lovely friend V
> 
> Prompt: Rückkehrunruhe
> 
> Character(s): Addison Montgomery
> 
> See note at bottom for additional warnings.

> **RÜKKEHRUNRUHE:** The feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness.

Los Angeles feels a world away from Seattle. Being in one gives the distinct, eerie feeling that the other has ceased to really exist. Cloud laden skies and a wind-whipped ferry boat deck seem like some kind of distant dram with the sun streaming in the bay windows of her gorgeous beachfront home. Conversely, that same sunshine feels like a mirage, a phantom warmth on her skin that may never have existed in the first place when her plane touches down on the damp tarmac, dark as dusk on a stormy Seattle afternoon.

Meredith Grey picks her up at the airport. Neither of them speak on the drive, neither really wanting to be here, or be here together. To be here, in a car, the same weather outside in which Derek's car had flipped, taking Derek and Mark with it. To be here together, in the same uneasy atmosphere of truce they seem to have been in from the moment she answered Meredith's phone call.

For the life of her, Addison does not understand why Meredith called her at all. There is no love lost between them, theirs a tenuous peace. She is no longer involved with Derek or Mark either, so there was no obligation compelling Meredith to pick up the phone. And yet she had, and Addison had answered, and then, hearing 'Derek and Mark, there's been an accident, it's touch and go', she had gotten on the next plane out out.

Addison would tell herself she has no idea what she's doing here, no idea why hearing those infuriating men were maybe-please-don't-be-dying was enough to make her drop everything, but she's too smart to believe her own bullshit.

She came for a reason Meredith obviously displayed her comprehension of by calling her at all. A divorce, a break up, a flee to a state so different it makes Washington feel like a waterlogged folk legend, that was not enough to excise the real estate Derek and Mark, despite her best efforts, laid claim to in her heart, not enough to hack away the tumor of her care about what happened to them. Somehow, Meredith had known. Somehow, Meredith had understood.

Looking now at the woman in the driver's seat, the woman she had once hated (tried so hard to hate), Addison feels a pang of respect for Meredith Grey.

They are very similar women, borne of intelligence and skill, of a shared history, of growing up in a domineering yet ice cold house, something Derek - with his mother, briefly his father, his multitude of sisters - just didn't understand.

In another lifetime, Addison thinks, watching Meredith still, you and I could have been very good friends. I'm sorry we didn't get to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: referenced car accident


End file.
